Middle East studies in the News

Profs Condemn Israel in Advance

by Martin KramerMartinKramer.org
December 20, 2002

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/404

The latest absurdity to emanate from Middle Eastern studies is an open letter suggesting that Israel might exploit a war against Saddam to engage in "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians. (The letter, released last Wednesday, is ostensibly in support of a small group of extreme-left Israelis who issued a letter with the same message back in September.) After quoting the shrill and partisan rant of "our courageous Israeli colleagues," the American profs go on to make a recommendation: "Americans cannot remain silent while crimes as abhorrent as ethnic cleansing are being openly advocated. We urge our government to communicate clearly to the government of Israel that the expulsion of people according to race, religion or nationality would constitute crimes against humanity and will not be tolerated."

Are these people serious? The claim that Israel is plotting the mass explusion of Palestinians is one more lunatic-fringe conspiracy theory, hatched by Palestinian propagandists who want "international protection" as the wage for their two disastrous years of insurrection. Unfortunately for them, Israel has done nothing that constitutes a "crime against humanity," and so Palestinians have had to fabricate one that never happened (Jenin) and cry wolf over another one that won't happen (forced "transfer"). Let me not put too fine a point on it: anyone signing this letter, effectively condemning Israel in advance for something it has no intention of doing, is either an ignoramus or a propagandist.

It's not surprising, then, that a majority of the original signatories of the American letter (eight of fifteen) are academic Middle East "experts." Here are their names:

Some of them are leaders of their field. Beinin is the immediate past president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). Mitchell directs the Middle East center at NYU. Tucker directs Arab studies at Georgetown. At the end of this entry, you'll find the names of more MESA types who appear as "additional signatories." One of them, Laurie Brand of the University of Southern California, is president-elect of MESA.

I'm not surprised to see the names of Noam Chomsky and Edward Said on this letter. Joel Beinin is no surprise either. But I'm disappointed that so many purported Middle East "experts," whose very profession is the first-hand examination of textual evidence, would mindlessly repeat the shrill claims of Israeli political activists. For example, did the Israeli chief of staff suggest the possibility of "transfer" in a recent interview, as both letters claim? Read the interview yourself. I see nothing in it that could even remotely be considered a proposal of "transfer." Quite the opposite: "We do not have intentions to annihilate them," said Israel's top soldier, "and we have also expressed readiness to grant them a state, whereas they are unwilling to recognize our right to exist here as a Jewish state." Did any of the American signatories bother to check the text of this interview? Obviously not—and these are tenured "specialists," several of whom teach the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The academics who now warn the U.S. government against the possibility of Israeli "transfer" of Palestinians are the same ones who failed to warn that very government, before 9/11, of the possibility that radical Islamists might commit a "crime against humanity"—specifically, against Americans. After 9/11, they warned that the greatest threat to peace had become—you guessed it—the American response at home and abroad. The real Middle East, with its real threats to peace and security, is so boringly predictable. Leave it to the "experts" to invent a Middle East and fill it with imaginary threats—it's much more interesting.

So the professors have posed as saviors of the Palestinians from imaginary "transfer." How ennobling. And there's no downside, right? Well, you also get your credibility questioned (see above), and your name listed (see below). Never trust the judgment of anyone whose name appears here. I don't.

(There may be other signatories of the letter who teach the Middle East, and who I didn't identify by a quick read. I invite additions and corrections, and I may make a few myself.)

ADDENDUM: If you want to know more about the Israelis who are complicit in this campaign of preemptive vilification, read the lecture delivered by Ilan Pappe, Haifa University's celebrity "new historian," to the "Right to Return Coalition" in London this past September. Pappe:

We must all take the danger of a recurrence of the 1948 ethnic cleansing very seriously. This is not just paranoia when I directly—not indirectly—link the war against Iraq with the possibility of another Nakba. Take it seriously, believe me. There is a serious Israeli conceptualization of the situation in which Israeli leaders say to themselves, "we have a carte blanche from the Americans. The Americans will not only allow us to cleanse Palestine once and for all, they even will help create the window of opportunity for implementing our scheme."

His conclusion: "The government of Israel is preparing a very swift and bloody operation." So Pappe's analytical prescience is on the line. Sandstorm promises not to forget this dire prediction, and will revisit it after an Iraq war.

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.